The Prodigals
by Kaesteranya
Summary: Drabbles and flash fiction pieces for the Varia and all permutations therein, with the crack, the porn and the introspection all around.
1. Evil is a good condition

**Evil is a good condition.**

_Written for the word prompt "strings" over at the KHR Fic Meme, with a title taken from the 31 Days theme for August 16, 2008. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~_

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He brought them together without knowing how he did it or why they stayed, because he exudes charisma with the same, unconscious ease that people breathe out carbon dioxide with every shift and shake of their lungs. He is their boss and he ought to be responsible for them, but responsibility is an alien concept and he is hard-pressed to care when they so obviously want him to grind his heel into their face whenever they do something wrong. It's not like he _asked_ them to follow him – he just sort of blinked and there they were, making grand sweeping declarations about following him straight to Hell. It was their choice. They could leave if they wanted to, and since they haven't left yet, they clearly don't want to. So he'll take advantage of it.

The older ones say that what makes the Vongola Family what they are is their ability to move people, to win them over with some choice words and – on occasion – a whole lot of firepower. People from all walks of life come to a Vongole because a Vongole is a beacon of light, and you know what they say about moths and candles.

Xanxus is not a beacon of light but he's certainly a pillar of strength and uncompromising rage, and it takes a particular type of person to like that sort of thing. Read: Squalo Superbi. Read: Levi A Than. Read: Belphegor. Read: Viper. Read: Lissuria. Call them twisted son of a bitches, but they fight tooth and nail for him, and that is what matters.

Xanxus, the real Tenth, is more Vongola than most Vongola, and it is the reason why they're never going to let him see the light of day.


	2. Bend over, here it comes again

**Bend over, here it comes again.**

_This one was written with the prompt "seduced and abandoned" in mind. Its title is taken from the 31 Days theme for September 11, 2008._

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Squalo tastes blood when they kiss, but he knows that it's coming from the cut on his bottom lip and not from any other, more questionable source. Xanxus has him up against a wall streaked with splatters of the same shade of red as the liquid filling his mouth, choking him nearly as much as the lack of air is. Xanxus kisses the way he kills people: quickly, brutally and forcefully, pouring every bit of who he was into a single area of his body and directing it at full force against his target of choice.

"Boss," Squalo mutters when Xanxus finally decides to disengage, "we have to—"

"We don't have to do a fucking thing."

And Xanxus emphasizes his words by taking Squalo by the hair and shoving his head back further, forcing the latter to crane his neck, exposing more of the flesh to his teeth and his tongue; he moves his knee between Squalo's legs, nudging them apart, pressing against the bulge in his pants. They reek of sweat, death and gunpowder but somehow it turns them both on to smell that sort of stench on each other's skin, to rub it in deeper through the cotton and leather of their uniforms.

"Bend over and spread it, trash." Given the way Xanxus is now pinning Squalo between his body and the wall and pressing his hands and arms over the younger man's, the insult sounds sweet, almost like a term of endearment. Squalo can do little else but move the lower half of his body given the position he is in, and he knows that this is exactly the way Xanxus likes him. He obeys, gives in to the thrill, because as much as Xanxus fucking scares him he also loves the man's rage, loves the way it reminds him he's alive through making him painfully aware of the fact that he could bleed.

That battle is their marriage; the fucking while surrounded by the bodies of their victims, their honeymoon. Squalo wakes up the morning after with a headache painful enough to give a sledgehammer blow to the jaw a run for its money and sore in places where the sun don't shine; he returns to headquarters to his boss chewing out some sorry son of a bitch and demanding for more wine. Giving any indication of the other night's frivolities earns him nothing but a smoldering look and a kick to the stomach. Squalo decides to keep his mouth shut and wait for the next mission to come around, so that they can do it all over again.


	3. Death by embarrassment

**Death by embarrassment**

…_I want to know why all of my Varia ficlets are cracky, fail, or fluffy. ANYWAY, this was written for the word prompt "teeth" over at the KHR Fic Meme. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for July 24, 2008. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~_

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Belphegor has just spent the whole day staring at him at every possible opportunity, and Squalo Superbi does not really deal well with being stared at. He tried to ignore it – really, he did. But then Bel started up with the toothy grin and the "uhshihishi" and eventually, the swordsman had to snap.

"VOOOIIIII WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!"

Belphegor laughs that stupid laugh of his again, but just as Squalo is thinking of a hundred and one different ways of editing the blond young man's face with his sword, the self-proclaimed prince points to his neck.

"What the hell bit you? A shark, or the boss?"

Squalo stares and stares some more then marches straight back to his room. Later, when Lissuria spots him and coos over what a lovely shade of red his face has turned, Squalo decides that next week, he's going to book himself a mission a day and work his embarrassment out by killing lots of people and blowing up lots of things.


	4. You know that ghost is me

**You know that ghost is me**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 8, 2008. Here there be spoilers for Chapters 220 onwards~_

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Beyond visions of fire, blood and scintillating webs of strings sharp enough to cut men to ribbons, Belphegor sometimes dreams of a black place that was empty of everything save a pool of water reflecting the darkness back unto itself. He always finds himself floating just above the surface, staring down at something that should be his reflection only that he knows that it isn't, because that isn't his smile, even if it looks like it is. Sometimes, the dream stays as it is, with him staring at that reflection staring back at him. On other days, however, he dreams of himself suddenly falling into that pool, drowning along with that person that isn't him wrapping its hands – small and white, exactly like his own – around his neck and squeezing, crushing the air before it even reaches his throat.

Whenever he woke up from _those _dreams, Belphegor spent most of the day after listless and annoyed, quick to torment whoever happened to have the misfortune of running into him (with the natural exception of Xanxus, whom he respected far too much to take out his personal issues on him). He hated dreaming about dead people. Dead people were uninteresting because they could not scream or attempt to fight back, and beyond that, they eventually stopped bleeding and not bleeding was never cool for someone as fascinated with blood as he was. He had always believed himself unattached and apathetic to matters of the family, much less a dead family member whom he was already done slicing and dicing. Why, then, was he dreaming about such things?

Much later, when he found himself looking up at his twin perfect and whole and smiling that smile, Belphegor remembered, with a small and near invisible shudder, the feel of the dream, the empty lake and the reflection. The bloodlust, however, was quick to set in, and Bel soon decided that maybe, if played his cards right, he could cut Jill up for real and he'd never have to go back to that void again.


	5. On usefulness and the passage of time

**On usefulness and the passage of time**

_Written for the word prompt "winter" over at the KHR Fic Meme, with a title taken from the 31 Days theme for April 11, 2008. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~_

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Squalo Superbi is the overgrown puppy that is always curled up in one of three places, depending on the circumstances:

1.) On his bed, usually naked as the day he was born.

2.) On the floor of his room, specifically on the Persian carpet by the fireplace.

3.) On the space between the accent piece and the door to his office, right up against the tacky wallpaper that Lissuria insisted on covering all the hallways of their headquarters with.

Squalo is currently occupying Potential Area #2, lying on his side in the same black leather that he was wearing the other night, muttering in his sleep. The light from the fireplace sets his hair aglow, like white fire. Xanxus knows, from personal experience, that it's soft and cool to touch.

Their normal routine involving Potential Area #2 is Xanxus nudging Squalo awake with the toe of his boot (or kicking him awake in the stomach if that doesn't work out) and Xanxus then stalking off with an imperious demand, to which Squalo will hastily comply (but not without a hell lot of cuss words and a good number of "VOI"s). It's been years, however, since Xanxus' second awakening - good, long years. Xanxus is kind of really tired of all this "I'M THE FUCKING SUCCESSOR" business. Squalo is still in place, still growing his hair out. There should be something wrong with that, but Xanxus can't really think about what it could be.

Xanxus marches over to the cabinet, whips out a blanket, marches to where Squalo's sleeping and throws a blanket on him before stalking off to bed. He tells himself that it's because it's cold tonight – Christmas is just around the corner. Squalo whines too much when he gets sick, so might as well make sure that he doesn't get sick at all.

In the meantime, from Potential Area #2, Squalo snuffles and mutters a little more in his sleep.


	6. And crazy is the forecast all week

**And crazy is the forecast all week.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for March 8, 2009._

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The day after Ryohei Sasagawa loudly declared that he would be joining Hana in Extreme Matrimony, Lissuria holed himself up in his rooms and refused to speak to anyone, or let anybody inside. No one, therefore, knew exactly what he spent the whole day doing – the only thing they had to go by was the fact that Barbara Streisand songs could be heard from behind the walls all day and all night and all the way until lunch the next day, when Lissuria – all soft-eyed and sniffly – finally emerged from his quarters.

One would think that after a fall like that (read: witnessing the totally oblivious love of one's life propose to another girl), it would take a person at least a few years to recover. Lissuria, however, took pride in his dazzling nature, and made it a point to bounce back as quickly. That, and the unique ways in which the Varia attempted to come to a lady in need really, really helped.

First, there was Xanxus, the boss himself – the moment Lissuria came out of hiding, he was subjected to the gunner's trademark whiskey glass-to-the-head treatment. Lissuria, of course, did not take this against Xanxus; he was fully aware of the fact that physical abuse was the only way that Xanxus knew how to show his affections for anyone.

Squalo came soon after, all trussed up like a pig with a bow around his neck, stuffed in the sort of crate that people normally reserved for wine bottles and other inanimate objects. The only reason why he wasn't nearly as loud as he should have been was because of the ball gag crammed into his mouth. That didn't stop him from thrashing around though.

"How do you like it?" Belphegor asked of Lissuria, with his usual toothy grin. "I prepared Sharky for this myself."

Lissuria shut the door on them both.

The next day, Levi came around with a polite knock to Lissuria's door and a tray of cookies shaped, with exquisite care, like male genitalia. "Since I cannot get you the real thing," the swordsman declared in a no-nonsense voice. "Bringing whores in here is against the rules, after all."

Fran did not do anything for Lissuria but mock his preference for men, but his conscious effort to act like everything was normal was more than enough.

In the weeks to come, then, whenever he saw Ryohei going on extremely about his future wife, all Lissuria had to do was go home to mock Xanxus into throwing something at him or tease Squalo about how being gagged really suit him in order to feel better.


End file.
